Yup, it was really coming down! Second day in a row in Taipei with heavy, almost torrential, rain in the afternoon. For better or worse, summer has arrived!
Guy
Got caught in it riding my bike to Sanxia. The sky looked almost black over Taipei. 
Yep, floods extending through Keelung Road and Gongguan area.
Careful out there!
[quote=“Icon”]Yep, floods extending through Keelung (Jilong) Road and Gongguan area./quote]
I used to work in Yong He and i remember once a year at least there would be this incredible afternoon thunder storm and deluge - usually in late June. Riding through it on your scooter is like being a stuntman in some Hollywood disaster movie with visible sky to earth lightning strikes detonating all around you. Seems it came a bit early this year but i guess that was it. It wasn’t the Mei Yu coz that’s well north - just an old fashioned afternoon sky fall. Wish i was there to see it.
I did check the world record for an hour’s rainfall - supposedly 305 mil fell in an hour in Missouri in 1947 - so well short of that - but still, 127 mil is five inches. In an hour. That’s an inch ever twelve minutes.
These are, i think, mammatus, or ‘breast clouds’. They were on display in Taidong yesterday evening. They are not as big as the ones they have in America but i don’t care about that. I’d like to say they were so close you could almost touch them, but they weren’t. They were tantalizingly out of reach.
They are supposed to be a sign of rain, which would be sweet surrender here, but it’s still a dream at this stage.
I don’t mind some heavy rainfall, but I swear to god I almost fainted when I saw a fuckload of cockroaches crawling on the streets and walls after the rain stopped.
dulan drift, does your little farm rely completely on rainfall? Are you out doing this 
at every approaching cloud?
Yeah, that’s pretty much what i’m doing. I call it ‘cloud communicating’. I saw some FB video about an animal communicator so thought i would try with the clouds. It’s not working very well so far. I’m probably not doing it right.
Got several tanks and try to use collected rainwater as much as i can for farm use, but also have access to a neighbourhood well. The tanks are almost dry - was relying on one more decent fall before the end of Mei Yu. That seems to be a pretty forlorn hope now.
The thing is, it often looks like it’s going to rain at any minute - today for example - out of the crushing heat, cumulonimbus mustering up on the mountains finally around 3pm and getting quite dark to the west, and you might even feel a few drops on your skin, a flutter of wind…
But in the end, nothing, just more black comedy.
Here’s my crack at a weekend forecast. Anyone is welcome to play and i’m also happy to have a go at a forecast for anyone planning a trip somewhere (within Taiwan). (Disclaimer: the last time i told someone it would be fine and sunny, this happened: https://youtu.be/DKUA9CZ8h3I
Taipei: The Mei Yu front is forecast to dip down a bit towards Taipei and it should bring the chance of storms in the north from Friday night through to Sunday. You lucky bastards.
Taidong: It continues to look grim for the south east. Or great! - if you like your weather hot and fucking sunny. The only hope for relief is some drift up from the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone in the Ppe. Surf should remain pretty flat. Bad for surfers but good for anyone who wants to take the boat to Green Island.
Just now we are stuck right where the action isn’t. North and south of her it is bucketing down.
Mei Yu front forecast positiong for 8pm Fri.
Lovely. Rain for the long weekend.
I need this sunny weather in Taitung to last until beginning of July. Can your crops hold out that long?
Might be time to amend that forecast. A month without rain and then a long weekend which is a boom-time for business but no sooner do i set up for the market and it starts to rain.
Seems a tropical storm has suddenly formed to the south west of us and that’s kicking up some much needed rain to the east coast. CWB has us at 20% for tonight but that’s silly - the radar is very active and apart from that it is actually raining. Good chance that we could get rain over the next few days as well.
[quote=“Icon”]Lovely. Rain for the long weekend.
I need this sunny weather in Taidong to last until beginning of July. Can your crops hold out that long?[/quote]
I thought we were in for it last night when it clouded over and we got a few big heavy drops…but it cleared away and we’re back to baking. Called my mother in Manchester and it was 13C
Torrential rain again in Taipei! Wonder if it will flood Keelung Road again…
In any case, watch out folks!
Guy
Yeah, that’s pretty much what i’m doing. I call it ‘cloud communicating’. I saw some FB video about an animal communicator so thought i would try with the clouds. It’s not working very well so far. I’m probably not doing it right.
Got several tanks and try to use collected rainwater as much as i can for farm use, but also have access to a neighbourhood well. The tanks are almost dry - was relying on one more decent fall before the end of Mei Yu. That seems to be a pretty forlorn hope now.
The thing is, it often looks like it’s going to rain at any minute - today for example - out of the crushing heat, cumulonimbus mustering up on the mountains finally around 3pm and getting quite dark to the west, and you might even feel a few drops on your skin, a flutter of wind…
But in the end, nothing, just more black comedy.[/quote]
I grew up in a fruit and wine growing region in southern Australia. Most people there rely on a good winter rainfall to fill their dams, then irrigate with this water over the dry summer growing season. Runoff is the word. Before the municipal water supply came people collected the rainwater from their roofs to use for washing, cooking and drinking. I suppose it is a kind of culture, keeping an eye on the sky and checking the rain gauge after every fall. My mum avidly records every millimeter in a little book. She’s pretty excited to get ‘an inch’, in the old measure, within 24 hours. I think we got about an inch in Xinzhuang yesterday in an hour or so.
Maybe I should buy a rain gauge and bolt it to the bars outside the window.
[quote=“antarcticbeech”]I suppose it is a kind of culture, keeping an eye on the sky and checking the rain gauge after every fall. My mum avidly records every millimeter in a little book. She’s pretty excited to get ‘an inch’, in the old measure, within 24 hours. I think we got about an inch in Xinzhuang yesterday in an hour or so.
Maybe I should buy a rain gauge and bolt it to the bars outside the window.[/quote]
I totally get your Mum and that’s just what i do. It gives you a bit of skin in the game.
The water situation in Taidong is precarious. It’s either this luan chi ba zao system of pipes going up to creeks - several ks in many cases - or well water - posibly tainted by insecticide. (Very few people seem to collect rain water for reasons that i haven’t been able to properly ascertain. Tanks are expensive - that might be it.) Many of the usual creeks have run dry - If the ‘wells run dry’… I don’t know what.
Apart from that downpour that killed the market - then just as abrupty stopped once it’d achieved its goal - we’ve had bugger all. But TS to the south, so we’re still in with a rough show at least.
Nice lightning show out to sea last night and phosphorescent plankton are out in the ocean. Definitely check that out if you find yourself out drinking one night near the beach and are looking for a bit of a blast. Obviously, try not to die while you are doing it. Water was surprisinly cold - might have been an upwelling going on. Bit of a swell seemed to be building for the stir crazy surfers today.
So Taipei’s June heat is setting records, says the China Post:
[quote]13 days of scorching heat in June ties all-time record
TAIPEI–The Taipei weather monitoring station recorded a temperature of 35.4 degrees Celsius at Tuesday noon, bringing the number of days in June with temperatures of 35 degrees and over to 13 during the month, tying an all-time high.
The 13 days of high heat in June tied the record set in 2011, the Central Weather Bureau said, and it predicted that the record would likely be shattered in the remaining seven days before the end of the month.
A high pressure system in the Pacific will also become stronger next week when weather conditions stabilize, further increasing the odds that the record will be broken, the bureau said.
The highest temperature recorded in Taipei so far this year was 37.1 degrees Celsius on June 19, according to the weather bureau.[/quote]
And a reminder about how last year already set records for days over 35C: CWB organizes press conference to discuss unnaturally hot 2014
Thanks for that info - it’s actually hard to get ‘all-time record’ info out of CWB - i wrote to ask them if last year was the driest on record in Taidong - i could see it was the driest in the last 10 years from their website data - they wrote back to say that they could send me the data but it would cost me $10 000.
This year is shaping up as even drier for Taidong, and as you said, hotter everywhere. When we seem to be smashing records year on year you have to wonder where all this it heading.
Ok, that’s it, I am getting a facekini when I visit Taidong. You won’t recognize atoga, just one more wrapped up mummy with a huge hat trying to survive in the sun.
Hahaha. We had a chuckle when a sensitive young guy dressed just like that walked by last weekend at the market.
Hahaha. We had a chuckle when a sensitive young guy dressed just like that walked by last weekend at the market.[/quote]
Yep, some of us are genetically predisposed not to agree with the sun. 